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<title>an ocean creature by androgynousmikewheeler</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30133644">an ocean creature</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgynousmikewheeler/pseuds/androgynousmikewheeler'>androgynousmikewheeler</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Gen, melancholic poeticism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:48:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>200</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30133644</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgynousmikewheeler/pseuds/androgynousmikewheeler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A portrait of a girl, separated from her life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>an ocean creature</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Max stares out the empty window and swallows herself whole. The ocean breeze wafts her back again. She finds herself ungrateful. </p>
<p>Her hair sheds sand like glitter, but never enough to replace the vacant stars. The lights on the boardwalk make a mediocre mimicry.</p>
<p>The asphalt burns through her feet, toppling her onto scabbed and unrepentant knees. A few dozen pixels beckon from the haven called forgetting. </p>
<p>Her child's hands grow up around a joystick, an understanding too simple for cinematography. She guzzles down soda and life with equal apathy.</p>
<p>She prays she never has to go home.</p>
<p>To be free is an allusion to a world not our own. To be alive is much the same.</p>
<p>And then the ocean, ripped away from her. A girl of the waves brought deep into the earth, tied to an unfamiliar womb.</p>
<p>The stars are not kind as she imagined, but distant and cold. Life is slow. The autumn does not fall so delicate. It devours.</p>
<p>And yet, from this horrid town come friends, something almost like family. From far below this cursed earth ascends a savior. </p>
<p>The moon governs the tides. Max leaves her a kiss to give to the waves.</p>
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